The Bonnibel, battered and worn, but still seaworthy, rocked at her moorings yet. They loosened the little craft, sprang in, Bonnibel took up the oars, and the little namesake shot swiftly forward through the rough waves to Brandon.
[CHAPTER XXXVIII.]
"Prisoner at the bar, have you anything to say why the sentence of death shall not be pronounced against you?"
The solemn words of the judge echo through the crowded court-room, and the sea of human faces turn curiously and with one accord towards the spot where the prisoner sits with his friend, the handsome German artist, by his side, where he has remained throughout the trial.
The case has excited much interest, for the murdered man had been widely known, and as for the man accused of the murder, his native land had but just commenced to hear of him as a son whose brow was crowned with laurels in the world of art. But almost simultaneously with the announcement of his brilliant success abroad had followed the dreadful tidings of his arrest for the murder of Mr. Arnold, and the distinguished position of the murdered man and the fame of the gifted young artist accused of the crime had drawn thousands to the trial.
It was all over now. Day after day the prisoner had sat with his flashing dark eye, and calm, pale brow, listening to the damning evidence against him. From first to last, despite the entreaties of his lawyer and friends, he had resolutely declined to attempt proving an alibi—the only thing that could have saved him. Now, the trial was over, the evidence had been summed up and given to the jury, and they had returned their verdict of willful murder. Nothing now remained but the dreadful duty of the judge—to pronounce upon that young, handsome, gifted man the sentence of annihilation—of death!
And accordingly he had begun with the usual ceremonious formula:
"Have you anything to say why the sentence of death should not be pronounced against you?"